It is all any of us can hope to achieve in the end, his widow had said - a pitiful 6ft by 6ft piece of land, certainly not worth fighting or killing for.

Yesterday, with terrible poignancy, PC Stephen Carroll was laid to rest in his own allotted patch of Ireland, in a small, sloping cemetery on the outskirts of his home town of Banbridge, Co Down. The 48-year-old was murdered by dissident republicans in nearby Craigavon on Monday, shot in his car after responding to an emergency call about a broken window.

Banbridge, a small country town halfway between Belfast and the border, came to a standstill. PC Carroll is the first police officer to be murdered in Northern Ireland since 1997 and the townspeople stood to express their quiet anger. Many did not move for more than three hours.

It illustrated the change the province has undergone in the past 10 years. Present at the service, alongside the Northern Ireland secretary, Sean Woodward, and the Irish justice minister, Dermot Ahern, were representatives of all four main churches, Protestant and Catholic, and of all the main political parties.

Most remarkable of all, perhaps, was the unprecedented sight of Sir Hugh Orde, chief constable of the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI), his Gardai counterpart, Fachtna Murphy, and the Lord Lieutenant of Down, William Hall, marching side by side behind the hearse as it was driven to the cemetery.

The officer's widow, Kate, and mother, Margaret, were pale but composed, though several middle-aged PSNI officers wept openly and embraced as the coffin was carried from the church. In a strongly-worded homily, Canon Liam Stevenson said: "The PSNI ... represents all of us; it is essentially a part of us. An attack on the PSNI is primarily an attack on the whole population of Northern Ireland."

The officer's killers, he said, had corrupted the meaning of the word patriotism, "one of the most abused words in the English language". He added: "Today is the day for peace. Let us concentrate our minds fully on building peace among people; let us not be distracted. A united people cannot be waylaid."

On top of the coffin, alongside the officer's hat, gloves and medals, was a bouquet of white roses from Kate Carroll, addressed "to the love of my life". Among the wreaths was one from the family of Sapper Patrick Azimkar, one of two soldiers murdered in Antrim last weekend. "We know the pain you are suffering and all our thoughts are with you," read the card.

In a highly personal address at the end of the service, Orde told the officer's widow: "He will not be forgotten, Kate. I promise you. My staff and officers will not forget what he did. I know the community will not forget what he did."

A man in his 20s yesterday became the third person arrested in connection with the murder of PC Carroll.

The Guardian understands that Barack Obama's team are considering a visit to Northern Ireland when the US president comes to Britain for the G20 summit next month. "It is one of the options under consideration," said a source.